Lucky Dip - Memoir or Autobiography? Richard Thomas C.M.G. 16/6/23

 

Lucky Dip – Memoir or Autobiography?

Richard Thomas C.M.G.

16/6/23  

It was with great pleasure that the Lit. Soc. welcomed back one of its former luminaries with lifelong roots in Winchelsea to discuss his recent book, Lucky Dip, in which his diplomatic career is scrutinised by that most unforgiving instrument, the retrospectoscope. Immediately our speaker drew the audience’s attention to the intrinsic tension in the title, a dynamic etymological equilibrium destined to tilt tantalisingly one way or the other during his talk even sometimes inviting the emphatically rhetorical question – “Does it matter?”. He ruminated on the wide spectrum in the final assessment of diplomatic careers, from the celebrity glitterati of the ambassadorial circuit to the unsung, industrious pit ponies tasked with collecting the material beneath the surface.

  Richard’s first 18 months of life were spent in Petronella’s Plat, offering an inspiring view of the splendid architectural torso which currently constitutes, St. Thomas’s Parish Church only for this quintessentially English idyll to be disrupted by an enforced evacuation to Canada with the outbreak of World War II.  His teenage memory bank yielded the angular shade of Vita Sackville-West in suitably masculine garb, her horticultural enthusiasm signalled by secateurs in the top pocket of her shirt.  The redoubtable grande dame of Sissinghurst shared a belief with Richard’s parents in the revitalising effect of the country air of the High Weald on the deprived urban youth of London’s East End and they co-operated on this project for several years. Next came Oxford, the Civil Service Exam and a first posting to the Commonwealth Relations Office and an ambience of striking informality – afternoon tea with the minister and his secretary sometimes graced with the presence of the latter’s husband, a serving mounted policeman wont to tether his horse to the Office railings.  As Earl Grey receded in his professional rear view mirror, a posting to Accra in Ghana landed Thomas in the tense atmosphere of decolonisation where he succeeded in facilitating the defection of a dissident Hungarian journalist and in deploying his burgeoning diplomatic charm to finesse from a rather hostile Ghanaian government his marriage service, and an enduring partnership with Catherine; a flame initially lit at an ANZAC Day party at the Australian Embassy there.  The roll of the diplomatic dice was to take him to the excitement of N.A.T.O. headquarters in Brussels during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Aid Section in New Delhi and the friendship of the celebrated BBC correspondent, Mark Tully and a career development stint at the Royal United Services Institute before alighting as no. 2 at the Prague Embassy in 1979, only to be given the run of the place as the Ambassador cashed in four and a half months of banked home leave.  This was an intoxicating challenge and the Ambassador’s return left our hero a bit deflated.  By successfully surfing a wave of managerial restructuring within the service, Richard beached in Iceland as head of a “mini mission”.  Although this assignment initially instilled gloomy foreboding in the Thomas family, Iceland’s long winter nights were successfully absorbed in their biorhythms, the lively polyglot president much admired and the anomaly of the huge N.A.T.O. base at Keflavik in a nation with no army duly factored in.  In the dog days of the Soviet Empire, Richard took on the role of Ambassador to Bulgaria as this most loyal of Moscow’s satellites was busily expunging its residual Ottoman legacy by ethnically cleansing its Turkish minority.  Soon, Western diplomats were able to declare Victory Day, in what they considered a Righteous Conflict, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact although the Communists in Sofia managed another year in power, rebranded as the Socialist Party.  After 1400 years of alternatives Bulgaria finally glimpsed the sunlit uplands of democratic pluralism and 96 new parties were ready to try the experiment.  Unfortunately, the sun revealed a dystopic system of State orphanages to which a host of disabled children had been consigned.  Catherine joined in the challenge of rehabilitating the system’s victims.  After a busy but rewarding 5 years in the Balkans, one final posting in the Caribbean beckoned before compulsory retirement at 60. Retirement was to bring a detached, delectable dilettantism, lecturing on cruise ships and submitting articles to journals and blogs when touched by a suitable Muse. 

So, at the end, how did the speaker’s etymological equilibrium between memoir and autobiography fare and did it even matter?  The audience was entertained by a series of vignettes of diplomatic life and the equilibrium was judiciously maintained, sparing the listeners a plunge into the narcissism of small differences.